


Breathe

by edema_ruh



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: (Yes I just made that up), 7 + 1 things, Academy Era Leo Fitz and Jemma Simmons, Also he loves her SO MUCH I just wanted to write about it, And so does Jemma, Angst, Aphasia, Being Stuck at the Bottom of the Ocean, Brain Damage, Character Development, Character Study, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, F/M, First Meetings, First Time, Fitzsimmons wedding, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Guilty Leo Fitz, Hurt Leo Fitz, Hurt/Comfort, Leo Fitz & Jemma Simmons Friendship, Leo Fitz & Skye | Daisy Johnson Friendship, Leo Fitz Feels, Leo Fitz-centric, Look Fitz just needs a hug ok, Love Confessions, Panic Attacks, Post-Framework Universe (Marvel), Recovery, This is fluffy and angsty and emotional so just give it a shot?, Weddings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-15
Updated: 2018-03-15
Packaged: 2019-03-31 19:07:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,085
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13981437
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/edema_ruh/pseuds/edema_ruh
Summary: The eight times Leo Fitz has lost his breath because of Jemma Simmons over the years.





	Breathe

The first time Leo Fitz loses his breath because of Jemma Simmons, they are both sixteen and achingly shy.

He can’t help but to hate her at first. Well, maybe _hate_ is a bit too harsh of a word to describe his feelings, but whenever he sees her stupid face showing up at their classes he can’t help but to twist his nose in animosity. He didn’t even know this girl and people were already referring to them as a pair, the two youngest _students_ in the Academy, when all Fitz ever wanted was to be _the_ youngest student. He didn’t need some awkward brit girl sharing the title and the honors with him just because of 23 _bloody days_. He knows this is just his petty, egocentric brain getting bitter over something that isn’t even that big of a deal, but how can he prove that his father was wrong in calling him stupid when he can’t even have a title of importance on his own?

It isn’t until they get paired up in the lab that Fitz realizes that all the anger and hostility he had been directing at Simmons was completely and utterly unjustified. It wasn’t like she hadn’t been as hostile to him as well, but as soon as they need to put their differences aside and work with each other, they realize that they would be so much more successful together than apart. Jemma Simmons is young, beautiful and most of all, so incredibly _smart_. As soon as they become friends, Fitz can’t help but to find himself taken aback by her wits every time they share a project or pair up during classes. He never tells her that, of course, otherwise she’d think too much of herself; but sometimes when he lays down to sleep in his dorm after a long day of working and studying with Simmons, he thinks about how lucky he was to befriend her. If it wasn’t for her, he would be completely alone in the Academy, just as alone as he’d been during his whole life. He’s thankful that he got to know her. He really is. And if they become FitzSimmons after a while, thanks to the amount of inseparable time they spend with each other, screw what his father would say about it.

The first time Leo Fitz lost his breath because of Jemma Simmons was when they were working at the lab and she came up with a brilliant idea for their project.

His mouth hangs open and he gasps, unable to say or do anything other than stare at her with wide eyes, hands leaning on his hips and sketches over sketches lying in front of him on his desk. He blinks several times and the way she smiles at him, so wide and innocent, because she _knows_ he’s taken aback by her brilliance, is enough to snap him out of his shock. He comes back to life, still looking very surprised, but his lips widening in a way that mimicked Jemma’s smile perfectly. He realizes he had forgotten to breathe as he just stares down at her, awe clear in his eyes, and that is the first time in his life that the words “best friend” cross his mind when he thinks about Jemma Simmons.

 

 

 

The second time Leo Fitz loses his breath because of Jemma Simmons, she jumps to her death right in front of him.

She knows the Chitauri infection will end up killing her and everyone else on the bus, but what she doesn’t know is that Fitz had just found out that the anti-serum works. She doesn’t listen to him, and she looks so, so pale; as pale as Fitz had ever seen her. Her eyes are red-rimmed and her hair is a mess, but she’s still beautiful in his eyes. She looks at her with a sorrowful look in her eyes and Fitz screams, he screams her name and a series of ‘no’s that aren’t enough of a replacement to all the words he wants to say. “We found the cure”. “Don’t do this, you can be saved, you won’t hurt anyone”. “Quit being stupid and get back inside, Jemma, you’re scaring me”. “You’re going to be okay, the anti-serum works”.

“I don’t know what I would do if I lost you”.

But the fear in his brain is too loud for him to scream anything other than her name.

She jumps.

After the last, desperate scream of “Jemma!” is ripped off his throat, it feels like all the air left his lungs. He has but a split second to figure out what he should do, what he _needed_ to do, so he rushes back in order to grab the anti-serum and then right out to grab himself a parachute. He can’t breathe, his stomach is churning and his heart is beating so fast that it feels like it’s going to burst right out of his chest, panic making his hands shake violently as he tries to put the parachute on and keep a hold of the anti-serum at the same time. Before he manages to do so, Ward shows up and yanks everything away from his hands, and he uses whatever breath is left inside of him to shout what had happened before the man is jumping right after Jemma.

As soon as Ward is out of his sight Fitz collapses to the floor, his knees too wobbly and weak to keep sustaining his weight. The air can’t quite reach his lungs and his vision is getting blurry, and he anxiously recognizes the symptoms of a panic attack. Someone rushes in right after Ward, but Fitz doesn’t really understand who it is or what they’re asking him until May’s face comes into focus in front of him. She holds him, not in a hug, but grasping his forearms and sustaining his weight in a comforting manner as she continues to ask him questions. She leads him back inside the lab and sits him down like a child, and Fitz manages to answer her questions, but once she leaves him alone to go back and report to Coulson, he feels like the air is too thick and heavy for him to breathe in. He tries his best not to panic again, repeating a mantra of “Jemma will be fine” in his head until she’s back at the bus hours later, dripping wet and still looking pale, but alive, _so alive_ that Fitz would have burst into sobs just at the sight of her breathing if he didn’t know how embarrassing that would have been. He still sheds a tear or two when he pulls her into the tightest hug he had ever given someone, but Jemma is so wet from the sea that the tears go unnoticed by anyone.

The second time Leo Fitz lost his breath because of Jemma Simmons was when he nearly lost her forever.

When she drops a kiss to his cheek and leaves his room later that night, he pretends that he didn’t lose his breath at that moment, too. His heart is frantic and he’s almost dizzy from the amount of adrenaline in his blood as he realizes that he doesn’t want her to ever leave his life. His smile drops and he has to fight the urge to call her back and just tell her, tell her the way he feels, tell her what he had just found out about his own heart, but he doesn’t have quite enough breath or courage to call her name.

 

 

 

The third time Leo Fitz loses his breath because of Jemma Simmons, they’re trapped at the bottom of the ocean.

She’s crying, begging him not to do that, and when she argues that he’s her best friend in the world, he has to tell her that she’s more than that. Because she _is_ more than just a friend; or at least she has been ever since she jumped off the damn bus. Still, the way the tears leave tracks on her cheeks and her lower lip quivers while she cries break his heart all over again. All he wants to do is to pull her into a kiss and never let go; steal her pain away to himself so that she can never suffer again, but the best he can do is give her his oxygen. It will have to do. He pushes it into her reluctant hands and the only reason she grabs it is because she knows it will drop to the floor unless she does, because there is no way in hell Fitz will let her drown when there is a way to save her, even if it means sacrificing his own life for hers. He makes sure that she can see the love he feels for her in his eyes, past all the sorrow and tears that much resemble the way her own eyes had looked when she was about to jump off the bus. The same silent apology and goodbye that had been in her eyes on that day were in Fitz’s eyes as he handed her the oxygen, both being acts of self-sacrifice in order to save the other. She sobs in a way that breaks his heart further and plants hundreds of kisses all over his face, but never, ever on his lips. He knows what that means. He wouldn’t expect anything from her that she didn’t want to give him, after all, and he wouldn’t want her to kiss him out of pity just because he’s about to die. He’s glad enough that she’ll live. That was enough of a reward for him.

The last thing he hears is her desperate, gut-wrenching “no!” right before he presses the button, and then everything explodes into darkness and silence.

When he first wakes up, he thinks he’s dead. Nothing makes sense and he still can’t breathe. Maybe he’s in hell. It would make sense, given the tightness in his chest and the sheer confusion in his brain. It’s only when he hears her voice that he calms down enough to breathe, but then he’s being sedated again.

When he’s finally cleared out of the hospital nearly a month later, he’s sure he’s in hell.

Hypoxia. That’s the word she uses to define what happened to him. Aphasia. That’s the word she uses to define what he’s going through. Fitz decides he hates words now. They were always being used to describe what was wrong with him, but he couldn’t use them to describe anything at all. It was like his brain had been forgotten at the bottom of the ocean, along with his last chance to tell Simmons that he loved her.

God, he was such a mess up. He never got to say the words, and now he would never have the chance. Not without sounding like a mumbling, stuttering idiot. “I love you”. “I’m not strong enough to live in a world that doesn’t have you in it”. “I would rather die than lose you”. Those are all just thoughts, now, trapped in his head forever without ever being able to escape through his mouth, at least not while sounding like he bloody wants them to. He feels like punching something, but hey, his coordination is messed up too.

According to her, having fits of anger and frustration was normal in his condition. He wants to tell her that there is nothing normal about him anymore, but the words get stuck at the tip of his tongue and all he musters is a series of pathetic babbles.

It doesn’t take her too long to leave.

He can’t really blame her. He had always know that their relationship only worked so well because they completed each other; they functioned better when working together. But he didn’t _function_ anymore, did he? He was broken, and a Swiss Watch didn’t work with a broken piece in it. She was right in leaving. He knew it was the only possible outcome to this situation. If a part of a watch was broken, then you removed it and replaced it with a new one.

It didn’t mean it hurt any less.

 When she told him she was living to see her parents, he actually bought it. He was a bit upset that she would be gone and he would be all alone during his recovery process, but he understood that she needed some time for herself as well. When he tried to bid her farewell, all he managed was a series of stutters that consisted mostly of ‘b-b-b’ and ‘hm’s and ‘eh’s. He pretended not to notice the choked back sob she gave him before leaving.

When she didn’t return in one month, he worried. He tried to ask Coulson about it, but his questions ended up sounding confusing and disconnected. Coulson always seemed to understand what he wanted to know, however, but he never properly answered it. The only information he allowed himself to tell Fitz was that Simmons would still be gone for a while.

After the third month, Fitz knew she lied to him. He’s a bit better at words; nowhere even close to as he was before the hypoxia, but better than he was when he first woke up. He can say some sentences now, even though they’re always cut off by his hesitant ‘eh’s as he searches for the words he wants to use. He tries to write her a letter, because he doesn’t have the dexterity to type a text message anymore, but one letter turns into several that he keeps throwing at the garbage one after the other, because none of them are quite able to convey his feelings and they all seem to have the handwriting of an infant. He just can’t find the words, no matter how he tries, and he wishes he could just put an end to his misery at once.

He tries really hard to hate her, but he can’t. He wouldn’t be able to hate her if he tried for a thousand years. If it came down to his life or hers again, he would choose hers without question, without hesitation, no matter how many times she leaves him afterwards.

The third time Leo Fitz lost his breath because of Jemma Simmons was when he gave his life for hers and she left him.

It wasn’t the ocean water punching him in the chest and knocking the air right out of his lungs that made him breathless. It was her abandonment. She didn’t _need_ to love him back. He would be glad to just have her stand by his side when he needed her the most. As his friend. As his best friend. She had always been beside him, she’d been beside him the whole damn time, but now she wasn’t. And not having her in his life was like having no air in his lungs.

Sometimes he wishes she would have just left him at the bottom of the ocean.

 

 

 

The fourth time Leo Fitz loses his breath because of Jemma Simmons, he is watching a surveillance footage.

When she doesn’t come after him after he asks her out for dinner, he’s a bit upset, but he understands that she is very competent and dedicated to her work. When she doesn’t show up in the following morning either, he worries, but it’s when he doesn’t find her in the lab that his heart skips a beat. Her desk is messy in a way that is usual during her working hours, but in all the years Fitz has known her, she has never left work without tidying her desk first. He can sense something is wrong as soon as he steps into the lab, but there’s no sign of her there.

He goes to her room and knocks gently, calling her name and waiting for a response. When several minutes pass and Jemma gives no sign of hearing him, he announces he’s stepping in and creaks her door open just slightly, in order to peek inside. His stomach turns when he sees her bed is made and her jacket is still lying in the exact same spot she had left it on the previous day. She hadn’t slept in, then. He rushes back to the lab just as Daisy steps in, also looking for Jemma. In less than ten minutes, Fitz finds out that no one has seen or heard from Jemma since the previous night, and that he had been the last person to talk to her.

He looks for surveillance footage of the lab and sees the recording of himself asking Jemma out for dinner. He watches as he leans on the handle that locked the monolith up, and he watches as the door is left slightly ajar after he leaves. He watches as Jemma shakes her head and reaches to close the door.

He watches as the monolith swallows her whole.

All the team was watching the video with him, eager to know the reason for Simmon’s unusual disappearance. But he can’t listen to the gasps and whispers of shock they emit once they see what had become of her. All Fitz can hear is the cut-off sound of her scream right before she disappears, and all he can do is stare blankly at the recorded image of the monolith.

Daisy seems to be the only one who realizes how absolutely shell-shocked he is, because as soon as Simmons disappears on the screen she covers her mouth with one hand and uses the other to squeeze Fitz’s shoulder. He doesn’t acknowledge her touch or responds to it. All he does is stare. Coulson is asking him something but he can tell Daisy asks him to give them space, even though he doesn’t understand the words. His eyes never leave the screen, as if he’s waiting for Jemma to magically reappear on the recording. Deep down, he knows that it will never happen, because if she had reappeared, she would be at the base right now. But still, he stares. His eyes are burning and he faintly wonders if it’s because he’s been staring at the screen for too long.

Daisy tries to talk to him, but his ears are ringing and he can’t make sense of the words. He used to be so bad at using them, and now he’s failing at comprehending them too. His chest is tight and his lungs are burning and he doesn’t think he’s breathing, but it’s not like it matters. He continues to stare at the screen, waiting for something to happen. Waiting for Jemma to reappear. Waiting.

“This wasn’t your fault”, Daisy tells him, apparently reading Fitz’s guilt for leaning on the handle in his face. She turns the rolling chair he was sat on around so that she could meet his eyes. Finally breaking eye-contact with the screen and the monolith was like reality punching him in the chest and he gasped, the lack of air in his lungs finally taking its toll. Daisy holds him while he hyperventilates and he’d rather she didn’t because this _was_ his fault. He was the one who opened the door and allowed Jemma to be… to be…

Oh, god. She was dead, wasn’t she?

He begins to cry and Daisy holds him closer, rubbing a comforting hand across his back. They’re alone in the room. She’s whispering sweet nothings in his ear as an attempt to calm him down, but this only makes him sob harder. He can see she has tears in her eyes as well. He doesn’t deserve Daisy’s help. He doesn’t deserve anything from anyone. He did this. This was his fault.

He should have stayed away from Jemma. Nearly dying at the bottom of the ocean, getting brain damage and being left behind by her were clear enough signs that the two of them were never meant to be together. Fitz had ignored the signs and pushed it anyway, and this was the universe’s payback to him. The universe’s punishment. They were cursed. They were clearly cursed. Fitz was sure that, even if by some sort of miracle Jemma was still alive and, if by another miracle he managed to rescue her, the universe would come up with hundreds of other ways to keep them apart.

The fourth time Leo Fitz lost his breath because of Jemma Simmons was when he watched her get swept away by the monolith because of his mistake.

When he finally brings her home, he doesn’t catch his breath back. Because she is no longer his, nor has she ever been. Her heart already belongs to someone else, before it even got the chance of being his, and though her request to bring Will back is killing him on the inside, he still tries, because that’s what he does. He will always do everything and anything to make Jemma happy, no matter how it hurts him. He loves her, and that is something that will never change, no matter how cursed they are.

 

 

 

The fifth time Leo Fitz loses his breath because of Jemma Simmons, they are making love for the first time.

She’s so beautiful that he can’t help but to feel his breath catch in his throat, and the way she envelops him in a kiss makes him feel like he won’t need air ever again if he can only hold her in his arms like that.

Her scent adheres to his skin and he can smell her on himself for hours after. Feeling the pattern of her tranquil breathing and the calm flutter of her heart beneath his ear while she sleeps with his head against her chest is enough to lull him into an easy sleep.

The fifth time Leo Fitz lost his breath because of Jemma Simmons was the best time.

He knows he will be happy forever, as long as she’s right by his side.

 

 

 

The sixth time Leo Fitz loses his breath because of Jemma Simmons, he is being forced out of the Framework.

The memories of his virtual life flood his mind with such force that he loses balance, but the more recent memories are what knock the breath out of his lungs.

_And you mean nothing to me._

_I want to hear you say it. I. Am. Nothing. To. You. Say it._

_SAY IT._

**_SAY IT._ **

Oh, god.

Oh, _god_.

He had shot Jemma. He had shot her, and tried to kill her, and told her she was nothing to him… And he had murdered Agnes, and Mace, and tortured Daisy, and Jesus Christ he was feeling sick and he was sure he was about to puke all over the floor when Coulson appeared in front of him, trying to calm him down. But he couldn’t be calmed down. He couldn’t breathe. He was a monster. He had murdered people, he had done all those horrible things. Jesus, Daisy was one of his best friends, how would he ever be able to look her in the eyes? And Jemma? After what he had told her? After what he had _done_?

He declared his sins to Coulson, accused himself of being a bad person and ignored Coulson’s arguments that he wasn’t, because Coulson had no idea who he was. _Fitz_ had no idea who he was. He thought he knew himself until he went off murdering and torturing people and working for Hydra. He thought he knew himself until he _wanted_ to do those things. He had always been so fast at judging Ward after he gave him brain damage, but now he _was_ Ward. He had hurt his friends. He had tried to kill his friends. He had worked for bloody Hydra! He was bad and undeserving of forgiveness and this was all his fault. Not only his part in creating the Framework, but his part in the creation of Aida as well. Or was it Ophelia? He couldn’t tell anymore, everything was mixed up and he _couldn’t breathe_.

When Ophelia shows up and touches him, he can’t do anything other than stare in horror and confusion at her. He was Frankenstein, and this was his creation. A monster, a creature that only wanted to love and be loved. And he had made her. He had brought all that pain upon his team and Jemma. Who was the real monster? Aida, for wanting to be human, or him, for creating her?

He deserved to suffer the consequences. He didn’t deserve their sympathy or their forgiveness. He deserved to receive back all the pain that he had caused. He was a monster. He didn’t deserve their forgiveness. He didn’t deserve it. He would never deserve it.

The sixth time Leo Fitz lost his breath because of Jemma Simmons was when she supported him even though _he didn’t deserve it_.

He can’t help but to cry as she sits beside him and holds his shoulder just like she always does when she’s trying to comfort him. He doesn’t deserve it. He doesn’t deserve _her_. He had done all these terrible things to her and to all of their friends, he had been a vital part to Aida’s creation, and he was to blame. He needs her to blame him. He needs her to _hate him_. Because he can’t live with himself and with what he has done, but if she forgives him, then he will _have_ to live with it. He feels so much self-hatred and self-loathing that he can’t understand why she doesn’t feel that as well. He can’t understand why she forgives him, or _how_ she forgives him, when he can’t even bear the thought of ever finding peace with what he has done. He doesn’t really think he ever will.

Maybe his relationship with Jemma isn’t cursed. Maybe the universe has cursed _him_ , and him only.

 

 

 

 

The seventh time Leo Fitz loses his breath because of Jemma Simmons, he is standing at a space station in the future.

He knew that freezing himself for 74 years was a risky plan that had everything to go wrong, but it was still better than living an entire life without Jemma. When he wakes up with Enoch at his side, it feels like he took a power nap, rather than slept in a cryogenic chamber for 74 years.

Learning how to be Boshtok, the Marauder, isn’t really hard for him, not with his experience as the Doctor. He trains for his role and acts it well, but as soon as he sees Jemma, the act drops. He was never able to be anything other than sincere with her, and seeing her for the first time in 74 years is enough to make him forget, if only for a few seconds, about every single bad thing he had done in his life, virtual or not. He looks at her as if she’s made of pure gold, as if she’s stars combined, as if she’s a supernova exploding right in front of his eyes, as if she’s galaxies and stardust and planets and moons. She’s his whole universe, and if he hadn’t known that before, he does now. He knows that he won’t allow anything bad to happen to this woman, and if she is willing to give him her forgiveness, then he will accept it as a humble, obedient servant.

The seventh time Leo Fitz lost his breath because of Jemma Simmons was when he saw her for the first time after 74 years.

He takes the first chance he can get to ask her to marry him, but once he finds out she cannot hear him, he wants nothing more than to grab a knife at the table and shove it in Kasius’s skull. He knows this is probably just the Doctor talking, _his_ everlasting presence inside him suppressed at the farthest corner of his mind but still making itself known from time to time. Instead, he follows the original plan, and can’t even pretend he is upset when she is the one to ask him to marry her. Being around her after so much time apart feels like finally breathing after being underwater for too long.

 

 

 

The eighth time Leo Fitz loses his breath because of Jemma Simmons, he is walking down the aisle to marry her.

He’s always been a romantic; there was no denying it. Despite of his obvious improve with the aphasia, he never went back to being as good with words as he had been before the bottom of the ocean. He looks at her, and all he can see is the light of his life, the reason of his being, his _soulmate_ , if soulmates were even a thing, waiting for him. Waiting to _marry_ him. There was no way he deserved this kind of happiness, no way he deserved _her_ , but he knows that if there is anyone who can help him come to terms with what he had done and find peace within himself, that person was her. Jemma. Jemma Simmons. The love of his life. _Her_. The one person who would always have his heart, his soul, his being, his love. A love that would never fade. No matter how many planets and years and alternate universes got in their way.

The eighth time Leo Fitz lost his breath because of Jemma Simmons was when she put a ring around his finger and promised that her love was his forever.

His speech is nowhere near as good as hers, but that was the whole thing about them, wasn’t it? Ever since they first met, sixteen and achingly shy, ever since their first encounter which seemed to have been planned by the universe itself, ever since the very beginning of their relationship, Jemma had always been better. She was 23 days younger, she was more socially competent, she was smarter, kinder, and more perfect than Fitz could ever dream of being. And he didn’t _mind_. Because all that mattered to him was that she was happy, and that she was loved. And she was _so loved_. It was only proper that her speech was better than Fitz’s; it was only proper that the romantic got out-speeched by the rational girl. In the end, it would be them and them forever, engineering and bio-chem, no matter where the universe took them next.

And screw the universe if it ever tried to pull them apart again.

**Author's Note:**

> I just really wanted to explore the nuances in the development of the FitzSimmons relationship and love over the years! You know that little shaky-breath thing Fitz makes every time he sees Jemma after a long while? That's what I was going for, but in the good and the bad moments of their lives as well. I hope this turned out ok!  
> Constructive criticism and nice comments always make my day and inspire me to write more, so if you liked this, please leave a comment! ♥  
> You can always find me on tumblr as edema--ruh and on twitter as @girltaire.


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